European Negative Growth

Share via

“She says she’s on a diet then she has a second helping of cheese.” So said Nicolas Sarkozy, then the French president, in 2011 in an overheard conversation with Barack Obama. He was talking about Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. Hopelessly ungallant, his comments were nonetheless a good deal more chivalrous than those on a similar theme reportedly uttered by the Italian Silvio Berlusconi, also about Mrs Merkel, the same year. Those could not be printed in a family newspaper. Or in any newspaper.

Mrs Merkel would have had cause to be somewhat irritated by this. Mr Berlusconi’s verdict, after